Vol. 27 No. 1 (2021): Dossier - Visions of Chinese History
Dossiê

From Kingdom to Empire to Universal Salvation Religion: A History of Paradigm Shifts in Early China

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  • John Lagerwey
DOI: https://doi.org/10.34019/2594-8296.2021.v27.33101

Published 2021-05-13

Keywords

  • Chinese Religions,
  • Ancient China History,
  • Universal Salvation Religions,
  • Buddhism

How to Cite

Lagerwey, John. 2021. “From Kingdom to Empire to Universal Salvation Religion: A History of Paradigm Shifts in Early China”. Locus: History Journal 27 (1):10-22. https://doi.org/10.34019/2594-8296.2021.v27.33101.

Copyright (c) 2021 John Lagerwey

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

I have long been intrigued by the fact that the Roman and Han empires collapsed at roughly the same time, and that there emerged from the rubble two universal salvation religions—Buddhism and Christianity—that proved indispensable to social and political reconstruction. Knowing only the rudiments of the Western story, I will focus on what I consider to be the ideo-logic of events in China, leaving aside the economic and technological factors of which I am ignorant.

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